A's offense muscles up to support Kendall Graveman against Yankees

NEW YORK — Kendall Graveman returned from the minors with a refined delivery and arsenal of pitches. It wasn’t pretty, but the A’s got what they wanted out of him.

Graveman did not use the changeup, the pitch he was working on adding to his repertoire, all that often Friday night, but his heavy dosage of cutters and sinkers kept the Yankees to three hits over six innings of work in Friday’s 10-5 victory to snap a three-game losing streak.

Going back to check the statistics on his cutter during his two-start stint at Triple-A Nashville, Graveman found that hitters were getting hard contact on it, leading to a rough start to the year that saw the A’s Opening Day starter go 0-5 with an 8.89 ERA before getting optioned down April 26.

He looked to add more horizontal movement on the pitch, and it allowed him to use it early and often Friday night in order to save his new and improved changeup for later in the game, which he used to strike out Neil Walker for the final out of his start in the sixth.

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“We’re trying to go back and fix that and trying to get the ball on the ground,” Graveman said. “That’s one thing I worked on and late in the game we started going to the changeup to lefties. When that started showing up third time through the lineup it got me some early outs and weak ground balls. When I can hold a pitch for the last little bit and be able to throw strikes with conviction, that’s when you go deeper in ball games.”

The three hits were costly, with two of them home runs. Graveman surrendered a solo shot to Gleyber Torres in the third inning and a first-pitch sinker to Aaron Judge that was obliterated over the wall in right field for a three-run shot in the fifth to put the Yankees (26-12) within one run.

Graveman’s shin also stiffened up as as the game progressed. He put a compression sleeve over it in an attempt to avoid swelling. A’s manager Bob Melvin was told by team trainer Nick Paparesta it would be an inning-to-inning situation, But Graveman said he felt fine after the game.

It’s still a work in progress for Graveman as he works to get back to form, but Melvin was encouraged by what he saw against a good Yankees lineup.

“Kendall pitched a good game,” Melvin said. “The only bad pitch he really made is the one to Judge, but other than that, to go through that lineup the way he did for six innings was great.”

The A’s also flexed their muscle on offense.

Facing an old friend in Sonny Gray for the first time since the club traded him to New York at the trade deadline last year, the A’s (19-19) jumped on the right-hander early on.

Khris Davis led off the second inning with a home run to straightaway center field, and two batters later, Matt Chapman smashed a two-run homer over the wall in center field to give the A’s a 3-0 lead.

Gray was charged with five runs on nine hits over five innings of work, with each member of the A’s starting lineup collecting at least one hit off the former A’s ace.

After scoring more than three runs just twice in their previous 11 games, the A’s bats exploded for four home runs on the night after holding a pre-game hitters’ meeting earlier in the day, with Jed Lowrie and Matt Joyce adding on with solo homers in the sixth and eighth.

“We’ve been struggling some here recently, but part of our meeting was the ebbs and flows of the season. We can hit,” Melvin said. “We just gotta power through a little bit, and you know against these guys, as hot as they’ve been swinging the bats, that you’re going to have to put up some runs. It was good to see the offense break out tonight.”

Chapman and Olson both seemed to get it going as they went a combined 3 for 8 on the night with two walks after entering Friday night coming off a home stand that saw the duo go just 5 for 42 over six games.

Dustin Fowler, who the A’s received in the deal that sent Gray to New York, received a warm applause as he walked to the plate in the second. It was his first at-bat at Yankee Stadium after his season ended abruptly with the Yankees last year following a collision with an electrical box in Chicago before he even got a chance to get his first major league at-bat.

Fowler picked up his first big league hit in the fourth, a 1-1 changeup from Gray that was pulled to right for a single.

“I enjoyed it because I was also able to get it off of Sonny as well,” Fowler said. “It was kind of a cool situation right there. I was glad I was able to get it early.”

Getting the start in center field, Fowler finished the night 2 for 5 with a pair of singles.

“It was awesome. I enjoyed every minute of it, especially late in the game when they were starting and trying to come back and the crowd was so loud you couldn’t hear some things,” Fowler said. “I had a long journey ahead of me from last year to now, but I was happy to actually get my hit here.”

With the game still tight in the ninth, Marcus Semien broke it open with the bases loaded as he smashed a three-run double down the left field line to give the A’s a commanding 10-5 lead.

Though the A’s ended up with the comfortable lead, Yusmeiro Petit escaped danger with a clutch performance in the seventh.

After Lou Trivino had walked Judge with the bases loaded and one out to cut the A’s lead down to 6-5, Petit came on and got Didi Gregorius and Giancarlo Stanton to pop out in back-to-back at-bats to strand the bases loaded and keep the A’s slim lead intact.

“That’s a save right there,” Melvin said. “In that situation, their 3-4 guys coming up, there were no two bigger outs.”